Precisely
by drinktea
Summary: The early days. Balthier is devious. Fran is very confused.


_Disclaimer: FFXII is Squenix's. This story's mine._

Author natterings: I wrote this because I needed some humor. Humor me and review?

**Precisely**

It's never really bothered me that she excels at everything she does. It's really just the way she is - she is Fran.

Fran is taller than me, even without the heels and ears. Fran is more mysterious, Fran is more beautiful, Fran is more magically adept. Fran is a snazzy dresser, though she scoffs when I tell her so. Fran is the best when it comes to finding - or finding a way out of - anything. Fran is also currently holding up our team because I can't seem to hit anything.

It's really not my fault. The shock absorption on this gun is _terrible_, throwing my shot off and ricocheting back through my arm. I swear my arm's going to snap at the elbow with another round.

Fran is, of course, standing a few metres from me and hitting each one of the band of cockatrices on every shot. With one arm. And a gun identical to mine.

"Showoff."

She raises her eyebrows at me. Tch.

I line up my shot, feeling slightly emasculated (I'm holding my gun with two hands), and fire.

... and miss.

I swear that cockatrice just sneered at me.

Frans finishes them off, including the sneering one, and walks over to me with those unintentionally seductive hips and legs of hers.

"You never told me you were inept with a gun."

_Inept?!_

My expression strikes somewhere between defiant and smooth. "Fran, let me assure you. I have handled guns magnificently in the past. This is a faulty one."

Not one to mince words, Fran instead plucks the gun from my hand, does a brief survey of the area, and fires three shots straight into the centre of three different rocks. She just gives me a look and doesn't bother returning the gun.

Hm. Can't imagine why I couldn't handle it then.

"Fran! Fran, what will I fight with, since you've apprehended my only weapon?"

"Your hands, perhaps," she says.

"What?" I say incredulously. I can't fight with my _hands_. It's disgusting. It's _unhygenic_.

"What do you suggest, then?" She looks at me coolly. Not coldly, coolly. Fran is the best at being cool but not cold.

"My gun."

"Not like before."

I realize I might be pouting at her, and make an effort to relax my lips. "So let's get a new gun. One that doesn't make my arm want to fall off."

"It's not the gun," she says, and I can hear the patience in her voice wearing thin, like I'm some child she deals with daily. I'm _eighteen_ for crying out loud. I can legally smoke, drink, ravish her...

"Teach me," I say.

Her brow furrows for a short time at this request. But then she says, looking away, "Yes." She gestures for me to follow her, and we find another group of monsters to fight.

More cockatrices. Really, they're absurdly small. And they move too much.

Fran tosses me my gun which I thankfully catch. I'm sure she put the safety on, but my pride would take a hit if I'd missed that.

"Watch," she tells me, and I look over.

She's holding the gun with both hands now, deliberately copying the closest she can to my style. She has one long leg back, her heels gleaming wickedly in the sunlight. She looks down her long, tan arm, nearly straight, and pulls the trigger. A cockatrice falls, but I'm not really paying attention because I'm watching Fran. I'm watching her shift her stance, move her legs so that the opposite leg is now in front. Her legs are really...

"Shoot," she calls, and it registers that she's looking my way now, since her knees are turned slightly towards me.

I shoot and miss.

We take turns. Fran excels at what she does - she hits everything. I miss everything.

She approaches me afterwards. I stare at the cloth swishing over her toned stomach. Fran is a snazzy dresser.

This is really quite a large deal harder than I'd anticipated. I can't focus fully.

"Give me your gun."

Those words snap me awake. "Fran, give me another chance. Maybe we could approach this from a different angle."

"Oh?" She doesn't hide her skepticism. Fran is the best at making that sort of face I see now.

"Oh, yes," I affirm, and step towards her. "I can't learn by simply _watching_."

She creases her brow again, not knowing _what_ I'm gibbering by the looks of it.

"Here," I say, and take my position, looking down the barrel of my gun at a piece of greenery. I hold it with one arm, like she does. "Is my stance alright?"

"You're ducking your head too much," she tells me.

"So help me fix it. Adjust me."

Fran gives me an odd look.

"How should my head be positioned? Move it."

"You can move your own head."

This surely goes a lot more smoothly in those romance plays. I relent, reluctant, and hunch my shoulders less to look up. "Okay, head, check. Arms? Legs? Torso?"

"Your wrist is turned up at a strange angle."

"Fix it?"

"You can move it down."

I sigh.

"Your legs could be less stiff."

"How?"

"Bend your knees."

"Bend them for me."

"Don't be silly."

I cluck my tongue.

"Turn your torso a little to the side."

"Like-- hm. Help me."

"I am. Just turn your body."

I throw the gun behind my back, drop my arm, and walk toward her.

"What are you doing?"

"Dear _Lord_, Fran--" I take her by the wrists. "Don't you _get_ it?"

She furrows her brow. She is the best at being a complete bonehead.

So I kiss her hard enough to get it through her skull.


End file.
